Boo on you

Regarding Sharon Livengood’s 2 May letter (“Snap Dan’s Pencil!”) and this paper’s decision to ixnay on the avagesay, allow me to call you, the editor of The Hook, a sissy. All this hullabaloo about “Savage Love” was predictable, especially coming from Charlottesville’s environs where common sexual mores are now confirmed to be provincial at best. Why’d you even sign up for the syndicated column in the first place if you’re going to cave when a handful of moms and dads who want everyone to learn love from When Harry Met Sally write in and complain?Boy, I felt alienated in Central Virginia before, but now that I know my neighbors to be incapable of skipping over something they find offensive, picking up their copy of Reader’s Digest, and moving on with life, my discomfort appears apodictically proven. But your paper could still try and live up to the “alternative” part of that “Charlottesville’s new alternative weekly” moniker, pissed Barboursvillians or no.This was purportedly Ms. Livengood’s first attempt at reading The Hook, so who cares if she gives it another try? Obviously those of us who live in Charlottesville are more likely to patronize your advertisers in the first place, and that’s what this is really about, isn’t it– it’s about surviving as a fledgling paper? So if advertisers have actually pulled out, give us their names so we can boycott them for trying to decide what we read.Bring back “Savage Love.” Charlottesville wants to sensually caress Mr. Savage’s pencil, not break it! Q.v. last Thursday’s message on the Mudhouse W.C. wall: “Dan Savage really cranks my scooter!” Mine too, sir; mine too.